MONTHLY CATALOGUE, FOR JULY, 1822. POLITICS. Art. 12. Tracts on Political Economy: viz. "Britain independent of Commerce:" "Agriculture the Source of Wealth :" "The Objections against the Corn-Bill refuted:" "Speech on the East-India Trade." With prefatory Remarks on the Causes and Cure of our present Distresses, as originating from Neglect of Principles laid down in these Works. By W.Spence, Esq. F.L.S. 8vo. pp. 264. Longman and Co. 1822. If, as Mr. Spence asserts with a degree of self-complacency that is more often felt by authors than expressed, the distresses of the country originate from neglect of principles laid down in his works,' we must in some degree be implicated as accessaries to the ruin around us: for it has happened, unfortunately, that the principles laid down in most of his political publications have been controverted in our pages. His "Britain independent of Commerce" was examined in the Monthly Review, vol. lv. p. 80., and his " Objections against the Corn-Bill refuted" were noticed in vol. lxxvi. p. 329. The present republication of his tracts is introduced by a few prefatory remarks, declaring his conviction that the present state of the country is an irrefragable proof of the soundness of his principles. 'If I were asked," he says, to state in one word the cause of our wealth and prosperity during the war, I should answer, the high price of agricultural produce, gradually influencing and encreasing the price of all other commodities; and by the vast stimulus which it gave in every shape to the productive powers of the soil, augmenting far beyond parallel in any age or country our surplus disposeable produce.' Of what advantage, it may be rejoined, is this surplus disposeable produce to a country "independent of Commerce ?" If a surplus produce be created by the stimulus of high prices artificially conferred on agriculture, it is not disposeable without loss. No country will buy at a dear rate from us which can buy more cheaply elsewhere, or can manufacture more cheaply at home. At whatever high price we produce, our sales must be accommodated to the low prices of production in other countries, or we shall not dispose of our disposeable surplus. In all foreign commerce, a mutual displacement of labor takes place in the shape of commodities; and the difference between the value of the labor displaced, and of that which displaces it, is the measure of advantage which either country derives from the intercourse. Let us suppose that Poland can grow corn at one third less amount of labor and capital than Great Britain and, on the other hand, that Great Britain can manufacture broad cloth, cotton-goods, hardware, &c. at one third less amount of labor and capital than Poland: surely it would strike most people that an interchange of these commodities would be more advan tageous tageous to both countries, than if Poland persevered in expensively manufacturing at home what she could more cheaply purchase from us; and Great Britain, in expensively growing on unproductive soils corn which she could more cheaply purchase from Poland. Mr. Spence, however, cannot see any advantage from such an intercourse. Our wealth and prosperity during the war are, according to him, entirely attributable to the high price of agricultural produce; and the true causes of this high price, with the happy assistance of occasional bad seasons, were, first, the national debt, or, in other words, taxation. This invariably enhances the price of the necessaries and luxuries of life, where the prudent precaution is observed of excluding the commodities of untaxed foreign countries from entering into competition with our own. Secondly, the monopoly which the agriculturists enjoyed; this latter being by far the most efficient source of our wealth, because, without the monopoly of the home-market, taxation could not have had the blessed effect of raising prices; for Polish wheat might have been imported during the whole of the war at 40s. a quarter. Having shewn that the high price of agricultural produce was the cause of our prosperity, the conclusion is irresistible that its low price is the grand source of our poverty and misery since the peace; and, as the monopoly of the home-market occasioned high prices, so the unrestrained importation of corn in 1814 and 1815 occasioned low prices, and was the real deathblow of our prosperity, bringing in its train a fall in wages, and in the price of all other commodities, and a consequent diminution of profit and income to every class of the community.'" may, however, ask how it happens that the price of agricultural produce still keeps falling, when it is notorious that the British grower has had the monopoly of the home-market for several years? Whatever the cause may be, the fact proves that this monopoly, even with the aid of a wet harvest, does not secure to the farmer those high prices which are so very desirable, it seems, to the rest of the community. The produce of the last year was abundant, but bad, owing to a general mildew before harvest, and almost an universal deluge of rain during the harvest: "Concipit Iris aquas, alimentaque nubibus adfert. Vota jacent; longique labor perit irritus anni. Ov. METAM. i. 271. Still, all does not raise the price of corn, or save the agriculturist from perdition. Does not this fact convince Mr. Spence that something else than monopoly, bad seasons, and a thumping national debt, is wanted? Cannot he imagine the advantage of lowering the cost of production, so that in years of abundance we might dispose of our surplus-produce with advantage? It is confessed on all hands, as we have seen by the recent de-' bates on Mr. Western's motion for a Committee to consider the REV. JULY, 1822. Y effect effect of the resumption of cash-payments on our agriculture and commerce, that the operation of what is commonly called Mr. Peel's Bill has been very much greater than it was anticipated to be when that Bill passed. Equal mischief arises from the too sudden subduction of a violent stimulus and the too sudden application of it: a limb benumbed by frost must not immediately be placed before the fire; and it is now seen that the measure of obliging the Bank of England to pay in specie was accompanied by such a contraction in its issues, and by such an advance in the price of gold occasioned by the millions which it brought up to meet the expected demand, as to have diminished our circulating medium with a ruinous rapidity, to have altered the relative situation of all classes of society, and particularly to have wrought such an effect on all money-contracts as almost to have made the debtor and creditor change places with each other. Sufficient precautions were not taken at the time to avert these evils: but is it credible that Mr. Spence should deem the recurrence to cashpayments at all, and at any time, as absurd a measure as it would be in France and Germany to revert to barter? Surely he forgets the memorable, the immortal resolution of Mr. Vansittart in 1811, that the notes of the Bank of England "had always been and were at that time held in public estimation to be equivalent to the legal coin of the realm;" and this at the very moment when guineas were greedily purchased at 27s., and when it was necessary to enact a law compelling the acceptance of the Bank of England notes in payment. An over-issue of their notes by country-bankers was perhaps impracticable, as long they were obliged to give Bank of England paper for them: but what was there to check the over-issue of Bank of England notes when government made them legal tender, and screened the Company from paying them in gold?" Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ?" Mr. Spence has his remedy against the recurrence of this evil, and a most amusing one it is: Submit the Bank's operations to a Board of Control, composed of members of the House of Commons, half-ministerial, half-opposition; to whom it should be given in charge, whenever the exchanges and the price of bullion indicate any redundancy of paper-money, to institute the necessary inquiries and limitations. The Prime Minister and the Governor of the Bank of England would certainly desire nothing more! At the close of his prefatory remarks, (to which alone we need now refer,) Mr. Spence suggests the following as the most feasible remedies for our distress. First, a temporary loan of three or four millions to relieve the pressing difficulties of the agricultural class. This boon has been offered, and wisely rejected by the agriculturists themselves because it was fraught with mischief.— Secondly, the clearing the country of its redundant population by facilitating emigration. This was tried three or four years ago, when it was the fashion to fancy that our population was redundant, though the experiment was not carried to the extent which Mr. Spence would advise; for, instead of paltry grants of 50,000l. or 60,000l., he would annually devote to this object one or two millions, millions, to be taken from the sinking fund. But how is this? a redundant population and a superabundant produce existing at the same time, in the same country! What a paradox! - Thirdly, to take the maintenance and employment of the poor entirely into the hands of government, or rather of a public board, under checks which might easily be devised to prevent undue influence and jobs. Mr. S. is very partial to Boards; and, although Government has hitherto "neglected the principles laid down in his works," and brought the nation to its present state of distress by that neglect, he is yet inclined to repose unlimited confidence in its wisdom, and transfer the management of about six millions sterling from the hands of parishes to the hands of Ministers and their retainers. Fourthly, a revision of the corn laws, including a more equitable plan of taking the averages so as to secure the maximum price to the inland districts; the abolition of the present injurious system of allowing foreign grain to be warehoused here; a great abbreviation of the period of the ports being open when prices rise; and the imposition of high protecting duties on all agricultural products that can be raised at home. - Fifthly, the immediate re-enactment of the Bank-Restriction Act: the transactions of the Bank being subject to Parliamentary control, and being made to pay annually to the public a sum equal to one-half or two-thirds of what can be shewn it is likely to gain by being released from the obligation to pay in cash. Art. 13. The Cause of the present distressful State of the Country investigated; and the supposed easiest, speediest, and most effectual Remedies, submitted with all due Respect to the Mem bers of both Houses of Parliament. By J. Symmons, Esq. F.R.S. F.A.S. 8vo. 3s. Rodwell and Martin. Mr. Symmons takes precisely the same line of argument in this pamphlet, which Mr. Spence pursued in the volume mentioned in the preceding article. He begins by reprobating the adoption of any change in the currency of a great commercial country, (unless urged by absolute state-necessity,) as one of the most weak and wicked of measures; because it sets afloat all existing contracts, and deranges the entire monied system of the kingdom: yet in the same page (10.) he expatiates in terms of high satisfaction on the advantages which this country derived from the substitution of paper for cash-payments. Now what was the result of this sub stitution, but the setting afloat of all existing contracts,' and the derangement of all the monied system of the kingdom? Yet, now that we have gone back to a sound and solid currency, we are advised once again to disturb all the contracts, public and private, which have been effected under the restored circulating medium. A bon-vivant, who had long indulged with unmeasured freedom in the pleasures of the table, began at last to feel the effect of these potations in a disordered stomach, feverish pulse, and debilitated frame. His medical attendant recommended plain diet, and the recurrence to sober habits: but so revolting was this salutary regimen, that he resolved to dismiss his family-physician, and go to some quack who Y 2 was was in the practice of attending rather to the dispositions of his patients than to their complaints. The advice of the latter was, that, whenever the patient found his stomach peculiarly weakened by the excess of the preceding day, he should excite its languid powers to action by the application of a double stimulus on the following. Fortunately, good sense enough remained in this inebriate to see the fatal folly of such advice: he summoned fortitude to follow that which he had before rejected; and, distressing as it was, for a time, to adhere to a system of temperance, he was amply rewarded for it by a perfect recovery. -Twice has this country been thrown into confusion by dabbling with the currency; first by the restriction from cash-payments, then by the return to them; and now we find gentlemen "who would make confusion worse confounded," by adding such complexity to every account as to render it absolutely impossible to be unravelled. The division, however, in the House of Commons, June 12th, after an adjourned debate, sanctioning Mr. Huskisson's amendment "that this House will not alter the standard of gold or silver in fineness, weight, or denomination," will probably tranquillize the public mind, by an assurance that no farther attempt will be made to fix again on Great Britain the last mark of a nation's weakness and degradation, the depreciation of its currency. Mr. Spence and Mr. Symmons are of opinion that a depreciated currency is the source of public prosperity; forgetting that, inasmuch as we augment the quantity of the currency, we depreciate its value. If money or its representative, paper, were wealth, there would be some truth in the opinion: but wealth consists not in abundance of money, but in abundance of commodities, accessible to those who stand in need of them. We have indeed the abundance of commodities, but they are not accessible; and the great cause of our present distress, as it appears to us, was, not the passing of Mr. Peel's Bill, but the neglect to accompany that measure with a reduction of the national expenditure, equal to the difference between the depreciated and the restored value of the currency. In consequence of this neglect, the national debt, and, in course, all taxes press with a much heavier weight on the industry of the people in this the eighth year of peace, than in the hottest of the war. Mr. Symmons says, truly enough, that low prices and high taxes are incompatible: but he would raise prices by means of a fictitious and depreciated currency; and we would lower taxation so as to render the actual abundance of commodities accessible, retaining inviolate "the standard of gold and silver in fineness, weight, and denomination." One measure suggested by Mr. Symmons we have as yet omitted to notice; namely, his recommendation to Government to take off the stamp-duties on all notes and bills issuable by private bankers. If the amount of these notes has been contracted from twelve millions to two millions and a half, the revenue would make only a trifling sacrifice: but we entertain very great doubts whether such a relief to country-bankers would induce them to accommodate farmers, as formerly, with loans on the security of |